With $850 billion (or so, who is counting, anyway) on the table, moving around about 1/3rd of one percent might seem like nothing but $3 billion here, $3 billion there and it starts to add up.
Earlier today, the House approved Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY)’s amendment to add $3 billion in capital investment in transit.
This was money that was taken out of the Appropriations mark-up of the bill and this voice vote puts the money back in.
Some statemnts from key players:
Rep Peter DeFrazio (D-OR, 4th District)
DeFazio has come out, forcefully, as one of the strongest voices calling for greater infrastructure investment in the overall stimulus package. He emphasizes that the claims that there is a lack of absorptive capacity for more infrastructure (such as purchasing buses and providing better transit service) simply doesn’t stand up to real world scrutiny. In this statement, he highlights a $160 backlog of potential projects and that this money will be support buying new and more fuel efficient buses for public transit systems.
DeFazio on Rachel Maddow … worth the watch …
Wow. Wish he were my Representative.
Americans are loving their transit systems to death. There’s $160 billion of deferred maintenance on these systems… there are 10,000 options for new buses, buses made in America. They can’t be executed because our transit systems don’t have the money
Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY, 8th District)
This states that this raises the overall transit funding to $12 billion, with $1.5 billion going to existing programs and $1.5 billion to new starts.
Rep Keith Ellison, D-MN, 5th District
Demand for transit services on the rise … In 2007, more than 50 billion trips were taken on public transportation. … With this money we will create jobs and move forward the green economy …
Of course, this is only a small fraction of what the economy could absorb and a very, very small part of what is required. Oberstar wanted $85 billion, with $30 billion for roads, but this got cut seriously to make room for tax cuts to make the bill more bipartisan to bring in all those Republican votes.
The reason for the reduction in overall funding — we took money out of Amtrak and out of aviation; we took money out of the Corps of Engineers, reduced the water infrastructure program, the drinking water and the wastewater treatment facilities and sewer lines, reduced that from $14 billion to roughly $9 billion — was the tax cut initiative that had to be paid for in some way by keeping the entire package in the range of $850 billion.
But I’ll say that our portion is the one that really creates the jobs. Our portion of it is the one that’s going to put people to work because unlike anything else, these jobs can’t be outsourced to Bangalore, India.
Yes, critical to have those tax cuts …
Note: Highly recommend BruceMcF’s Transport Stimulus: Doing it Right. And, for my perspective on how we should judge every single item and what priorities should be in the stimulus package(s), see Stimulate me … And, for an example of how to spend $200 billion better than tax cuts, see A W4 Solution: Insulate US from economic and climate devastation